Cuts will rip the heart out of Samaritans at a time when it's never been needed more

The UK and Ireland’s most recognisable suicide prevention charity, dubbed the ‘fourth emergency service’, has found itself at a major crossroads.

After 70 years of providing support, comfort and a listening ear, Samaritans is facing its biggest overhaul in its seven decades, as chief executive Julie Bentley announced proposals to close at least half of its branches – around 100 – over the next 10 years. Ms Bentley claims that having more than 200 branches “is not sustainable and hinders us” from providing the best service.

As a former listening volunteer, the news made me feel physically sick. For three years, I spent many hours listening to people who had reached rock bottom – the lonely, the depressed, the suicidal. People who felt they had nowhere left to turn. And the calls kept coming. Every time I replaced the receiver, the phone would ring again. It was relentless.

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Plans to slash the number of branches (which will inevitably involve a loss of volunteers) are distressing enough when you consider the sheer number of callers who use Samaritans, many redirected from overstretched mental health services. But what really concerns me is proposals for so-called “virtual volunteering”, with listeners answering calls at home, which puts the core principle of Samaritans at a very real risk.

Caller confidentiality is at the heart of what Samaritans does, including the controversial policy that this confidentiality should be maintained even after the caller’s death. While it’s true that this policy does not sit comfortably with everyone, it does demonstrate how sacred the notion of caller confidentiality is to the charity.

It’s been seven years since I took my last call, but I still vividly remember details of some of the most distressing ones. But I will take those details to my grave because I recognise the importance of this core value.

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Any notes I took during a call would get fed through the shredder the second my shift was over. At our branch, minimal, non-identifying caller information was recorded in an old- fashioned paper log, which was stored in the duty room. Gaining access to this was akin to a challenge on The Crystal Maze. A first key would get you through the front door, a keypad code was needed to get through the second door, and then you had to locate another key in a secret hiding place to get into the duty room. 

Then there was another game of find-the-key to unlock the enormous padlock and chain that secured the cupboard where the log was kept. Can this Fort Knox approach to protecting caller details be replicated in a volunteer’s home, or will notes and files simply be left lying on the kitchen countertop for anyone to see?

Everyone’s working-from-home set up looks different. While some may enjoy the privacy of purpose-built home offices at the bottom of the garden, others may have to set up on the family dining table, or simply anywhere they can find in a shared space. Suddenly, what should be a private phone call in a quiet, sacred space runs the risk of becoming public property. 

Is Samaritans going to vet each volunteer’s WFH setup before jumping in with the virtual volunteering model? Highly unlikely.

The other major problem with Samaritans answering calls from home is that it puts volunteers’ wellbeing at risk. I was never allowed to fly solo during a shift – there was always a second volunteer there to offer emotional support or a shoulder to cry on, accompanied by a comforting cup of tea and biscuits if required. I don’t think I could have made it through some of the more harrowing calls without someone by my side.

The beauty of working from the branch was that I could (largely) leave what I heard at the front door. The 20-minute drive home gave me time and space to decompress and placed a buffer between Samaritans’ business and my personal life. By taking some of those more traumatic calls at home, volunteers will have their own safe space violated. More so for female volunteers who also have to deal with men who abuse the service by making repeated sexually explicit calls.

Exposing women to this in their own home, alone, would be a huge failure in the Samaritans’ duty of care towards its volunteers. Sex calls are not a minor problem either – there was at least one every single shift.

I’ve experienced all sides of this amazing organisation, as a volunteer, branch fundraising lead, and as a caller when I went through an exceptionally difficult period after leaving my branch. For a very long time, it was a reassuring constant in my life. I have a lot of love for Samaritans, and I just can’t get my head around the idea of cutting the service when the need for it is greater than ever before.

I can only hope that these ludicrous branch-cutting plans are not given the go-ahead. It is not too late to turn back. However, if the charity pushes ahead, I hope the chief executive enjoys her legacy as the person who ripped the heart out of this life-saving institution.

Laura Cooke is a former Samaritans volunteer.

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